Data.gov

aid: data-gov
name: Data.gov
description: Data.gov is the United States federal government's open data catalog, operated
  by the General Services Administration (GSA) Technology Transformation Services. It indexes
  over 300,000 datasets, tools, and resources from federal, state, local, and tribal
  governments, as well as universities and non-profits. The catalog runs on CKAN 2.11
  and exposes the standard CKAN Action API at catalog.data.gov/api/3/action for programmatic
  discovery and retrieval of datasets, organizations, groups, tags, and resources. Data.gov
  also publishes the federal Project Open Data (POD) schema (data.json) catalog endpoint
  at /data.json on every federal agency site, which Data.gov harvests into the central
  catalog. Related properties include inventory.data.gov (publisher-facing CKAN inventory),
  resources.data.gov (open data policy resources), and the api.data.gov shared API
  gateway used by 25+ federal agencies for 450+ APIs.
type: Index
image: https://kinlane-productions.s3.amazonaws.com/apis-json/apis-json-logo.jpg
url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/data-gov/refs/heads/main/apis.yml
created: '2026-05-25'
modified: '2026-05-25'
specificationVersion: '0.19'
tags:
- Government
- Open Data
- Catalog
- CKAN
- Datasets
- Federal
- GSA
- Open Government
apis:
- aid: data-gov:ckan-action-api
  name: Data.gov CKAN Action API
  tags:
  - Catalog
  - CKAN
  - Datasets
  - Open Data
  humanURL: https://docs.ckan.org/en/2.11/api/
  baseURL: https://catalog.data.gov/api/3/action
  properties:
  - url: https://docs.ckan.org/en/2.11/api/
    type: Documentation
  - url: https://catalog.data.gov/api/3/action/help_show
    type: APIReference
  - url: https://resources.data.gov/resources/dcat-us/
    type: Standards
  description: The CKAN Action API exposes the full Data.gov catalog programmatically.
    It provides read access to packages (datasets), resources (file/URL distributions),
    organizations (publishers — federal agencies and sub-agencies), groups (topical
    categories), tags, and users. The API is a single endpoint family at /api/3/action/{action_name}
    accepting GET (for simple read calls) and POST (JSON body) for any action. Key
    actions include package_search, package_show, package_list, organization_list,
    organization_show, group_list, group_show, tag_list, resource_show, and
    current_package_list_with_resources. Responses are wrapped in {success, result,
    help} envelopes. Read access is anonymous; write actions require an API key
    (Data.gov restricts write access to authorized agency publishers).
- aid: data-gov:project-open-data
  name: Project Open Data (data.json) Catalog API
  tags:
  - Open Data
  - DCAT-US
  - Federal
  - Catalog
  humanURL: https://resources.data.gov/resources/dcat-us/
  properties:
  - url: https://resources.data.gov/resources/dcat-us/
    type: Documentation
  - url: https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/
    type: JSONSchema
  - url: https://github.com/GSA/project-open-data-dashboard
    type: SourceCode
  description: Every U.S. federal executive branch agency is required by the Open Government
    Data Act of 2018 (and predecessor OMB M-13-13) to publish a public enterprise data
    inventory as a JSON document at /data.json on its primary domain. The format
    follows the DCAT-US 1.1 schema (Project Open Data Metadata Schema), an extension
    of W3C DCAT. Data.gov harvests these /data.json endpoints on a regular cadence
    and ingests records into the central CKAN catalog. The schema defines a Catalog
    containing Dataset records with required fields (title, description, keyword,
    modified, publisher, contactPoint, identifier, accessLevel, bureauCode, programCode)
    and optional distribution records (downloadURL, accessURL, mediaType, format).
- aid: data-gov:datajson-harvester
  name: Data.gov Harvester (datagov-harvester)
  tags:
  - Harvesting
  - Catalog
  - Ingestion
  humanURL: https://harvest.data.gov/
  properties:
  - url: https://github.com/GSA/datagov-harvester
    type: SourceCode
  - url: https://harvest.data.gov/
    type: Portal
  description: The Data.gov harvester service ingests dataset metadata from federal,
    state, local, and tribal data.json endpoints, CKAN sources, and other CSW/WAF
    sources on a scheduled cadence and writes records into the central catalog.
    It is a publisher-facing service (not a public API for consumers) but its source
    code is open at GSA/datagov-harvester and it documents the harvest source types,
    job schedules, and validation rules used by Data.gov.
- aid: data-gov:inventory-api
  name: Inventory.data.gov CKAN API
  tags:
  - Catalog
  - CKAN
  - Publisher
  - Inventory
  humanURL: https://inventory.data.gov/
  baseURL: https://inventory.data.gov/api/3/action
  properties:
  - url: https://docs.ckan.org/en/2.11/api/
    type: Documentation
  - url: https://github.com/GSA/inventory-app
    type: SourceCode
  description: Inventory.data.gov is a second CKAN instance (also running CKAN 2.11)
    used by federal agencies as a publishing inventory before public release on
    catalog.data.gov. Most actions require authorization, but the same CKAN Action
    API surface is available at /api/3/action for authenticated publishers to manage
    their agency's dataset inventory.
maintainers:
- FN: Kin Lane
  email: [email protected]
common:
- type: GitHub
  url: https://github.com/GSA/data.gov
- type: GitHubOrganization
  url: https://github.com/GSA
- type: SourceCode
  url: https://github.com/GSA/catalog.data.gov
- type: Portal
  url: https://data.gov/
- type: Catalog
  url: https://catalog.data.gov/
- type: Documentation
  url: https://resources.data.gov/
- type: Strategy
  url: https://strategy.data.gov/
- type: Blog
  url: https://data.gov/news/
- type: Twitter
  url: https://twitter.com/usdatagov
- type: Standards
  url: https://resources.data.gov/resources/dcat-us/
- type: Legislation
  url: https://www.congress.gov/115/plaws/publ435/PLAW-115publ435.pdf
- type: Contact
  url: https://data.gov/contact/
- type: Privacy
  url: https://data.gov/privacy-policy/
- type: TermsOfService
  url: https://data.gov/privacy-policy/#data-policy
include: []
score:
  tier: 1
  rationale: Data.gov is the canonical U.S. federal open data catalog, mandated by
    the OPEN Government Data Act of 2018. It exposes the full CKAN 2.11 Action API
    at catalog.data.gov/api/3/action, indexes 300,000+ datasets from across federal,
    state, local, and tribal governments, defines the DCAT-US (Project Open Data)
    metadata standard used by every federal agency's /data.json endpoint, and is
    operated openly with all infrastructure code on github.com/GSA. The breadth of
    downstream data, the open-source posture, the legal mandate behind the catalog,
    and the standardization role (DCAT-US) place it firmly in Tier 1.